stop to breathe. I was well ashamed of myself, at the time,
but I could not help it.

On that night it was even nine o'clock before I could get up courage
to go to the barn and feed the stock. I think I was in a greater state
of terror than on the night after the battle with the wolves. I walked
the floor, back and forth, on tiptoe and listened; and the less there
was to hear, the more I heard. At last I, after a fashion, put down my
fright, and ventured out to the barn; but even then I could not
whistle; I tried, but my lips would not stay puckered.

I went to bed as soon as I could, and though I thought I should never
get to sleep, I did at last. What my dreams were, or how many times I
sat up in bed with a start, are things I do not like to think about.
But notwithstanding this, I felt better in the morning and went at the
work as hard as I could.

But though, as I say, up to the 25th of January (and even beyond) I
had no further glimpse of the mysterious visitor, I saw evidence of
its presence often enough.

Night after night the scrap-pail by the back door was rummaged and
something taken from it, and once a chicken was missing from the barn.
The only way that anything could get in was through a window into the
hay-loft seven or eight feet above the drift. After I missed the
chicken I nailed this up and lost no more. I thought there were a few
scratches on the side of the barn below the window, but I could tell
nothing from them. Almost every night it either snowed or drifted, or
both, so there was almost no hope of ever finding tracks of any kind
on the ground. One morning I found the windmill at the station thrown
into gear and running full tilt, but the lever which controlled it may
have slipped. Two or three times I thought I heard the windlass of the
well near the barn creak, but I tried to make myself believe that it
was only the wind.

You may be sure that my sleep was very light, and I often heard Kaiser
growling and barking late at night in the hotel. I never had the
courage to sit up and watch again. I may have been more cowardly than
I should have been; I leave that to the reader to say. One night I lay
awake listening to the wolves howling up at the north end of the town.
Suddenly their cry changed and they swept the whole length of the
street like the wind, and much faster than they usually went when
simply ranging for prey. They may have been chasing a jack-rabbit.

Another night they howled so